Classical Conditioning Flashcards
What is an elicited behaviour?
(involuntary) behaviour drawn out by certain stimulus
You put your hand on a stive, what is the stimulus and the elicited behaviour in this situation?
Stimulus= hot plate
elicited behaviour= taking your hand away
What is habituation?
Decrease in strength of elicited behaviour through repeated presentations of eliciting stimulus
What are the two types of habituation?
• Long-term (gradual and spaced – slowly in/out)
• Short-term (continuous and narrowly spaced – quickly
in/out)
What is the increase in strength of elicited behaviour through repeated presentations of eliciting stimulus, called?
Sensitisation
• Generalisation common
When would you habituate?
- Low intensity of the elicited stimuli causes habituation
- If there is little adaptive significance of the behaviour you might habituate
When would you sensitise?
- If there is high intensity associated with the stimuli
- If there is a high adaptive significance
What did Ivan Pavlov describe classical conditioning (CC) as?
Classical conditioning is a type of learning whereby a
stimulus acquires the capacity to produce a response
that was previously produced by another (different)
stimulus.
What was Pavolov’s main purpose with CC?
investigated salivation, the initial step in the digestive
process.
• Purpose: to train a dog to salivate to the sound of
a metronome
What type of learning takes place with CC?
Associative
CC is a learning process whereby innate behaviours
may be produced in new situations- These behaviours are ‘reflexive’ or involuntary T/F
Tru
What is an unconditioned response? Give example relating to a dog with meat.
UR-
Response naturally elicited by US
(innate, unlearned)
- Salivating due to meat
What is an unconditioned stimulus? Give example relating to a dog with meat.
US- Stimulus that naturally elicits a
response
- The meat (naturally elicits salivating)
What is the neutral stimulus? Give example relating to a dog with meat.
NS- Does not elicit response
- The bell
What is the conditioned stimulus? Give example relating to a dog with meat.
CS- Initially neutral but now elicits
response due to association with
unconditioned stimulus
- The bell becomes the NS after repeated pairing of food and the bell
What is a conditioned response? Give example relating to a dog with meat.
CR- Similar to UR (usually weaker) but in
response to CS
- Salivating when the bell is heard even though there is no food.
What is an unconditional reflex?
Consists of an unconditional stimulus (US) and an unconditional response
(UR)
• They are largely innate
Salivating is an unconditiona reflex.
What is a conditional reflex?
Consists of a conditional stimulus (CS) and a conditional response (CR)
They tend to be products of experience
• you learn that food dish if yummy so you salivate
Write out the mechanism that occurs before, during and after conditioning.
- Before:
- During:
- After
(on paper)
What is a trial?
Pairing of US and neutral/CS
- i.e. pairing of the meat and the bell is a trial
What is acquistion?
Initial stage of learning. This is were we learn that bell= food.
What is the inter-stimulus interval?
the time between the
presentation of the CS and the UCS, and the order of
presentation
Time between presenting the bell and the food.
What is higher-order conditioning? Give an example.
Following initial conditioning, a conditioned stimulus can act as an unconditioned stimulus to further conditioning
e.g. If we have associated a bell with food in phase two we can use the salivating due to the bell with a light to produce salivating due to both the bell and the light
What are the five variables affecting CC?
- How the CS and US are paired
- Contingency and Contiguity (between the CS and US)
- Prior experience
- The number of pairings
- The Intertrial interval
What are the types of CC? (4)
• Delayed (most effective)
- CS (formerly NS) & US overlap
• Simultaneous
- CS (formerly NS) & US coincide
exactly
• Trace
- CS (formerly NS) begins and ends
before the US is presented
• Backward
- Onset of CS (formerly NS) follows
the onset of the US
Draw the differences between the four types of CC on paper.
paper
What is contingency regarding CC?
How reliably does the stimulus (N/US/CS) precede the response (CR/UR)?
How reliably does the bell precede salivating?
Reliably paring the stimuli with the response increases the ____ and ______of learning.
speed; strength
What is contiguity?
How close in time and space are the two events?
Is the interstimulus interval
How does contiguity affect learning? Is it better to have larger or smaller times/spaces between interstimulus intervals? Elaborate.
Generally, smaller the time between interstimulus intervals (time or space between presentation of CS/NS and the UCS) the more quickly learning with occur.
But it will vary depending on a number of variables e.g. type of response being learnt- conditioning an eye blink will be a lot easier than conditioning a phobia.
What does Stimulus features have to do with the speed of conditioning?
The physical characteristics of the CS and US can affect the speed of conditioning
What is a compound stimulus?
a CS that consists of two or more stimuli
such as a light and a noise.
What is overshadowing?
The tendency for one stimulus
to overshadow the effect of the
other
Give an example of compound stimuli & overshadowing occuring.
a bell and a light produce a response
(US + US –> response)
But the bell ends up overshadowing the the light, so
Bell —> response
Light —> no response
How do stimulus features affect learning?
Some stimuli like snakes & spiders are just more likely to elicit fear.
How do prior experiences with CS & US affect CC? Explain Latent inhibition & Blocking.
• Novel stimuli are more likely to become conditioned stimuli.
• Latent Inhibition: The appearance of a stimulus without the US interferes with the ability of that stimulus to become a CS later on.
– a familiar stimulus is more difficult to condition as a CS
that an unfamiliar stimulus
• Blocking: An established CS can block the conditioning
new CS.
What happens to th strength of the CR when you do lots of trials?
Strength of CR increases
First pairings are generally (more/less) important than later ones.
More.
What is intertrial interval?
The gap between subsequent trails
How much gap should you leave between each
set of trials?
Longer intervals are more effective that shorter ones
at least 20 secs
What is the extinction of a behaviour? Why does it occur?
The weakening of the conditioned response
when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the
unconditioned stimulus
Extinction is the unlearning of behaviour: T/F?
False; it is the inhibition NOT unlearning.
What is spontaneous recovery?
The re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response
What is stimulus generalisation? What was a very important study regarding stimulus generalisation?
The tendency for the
subject to respond not only to the exact stimulus
used but also to other similar stimuli
• Study of Little Albert done by Watson & Rayner
Write out how Little Albert was conditioned on some paper.
Paper.
What is stimulus discrimination?
When a subject that has learnt a response to a specific stimulus does not respond to a new similar stimuli.
Pavlov’s dogs were able to discriminate between
different tones/bells.
What are the four theories of conditioning?
- Stimulus-substitution
- Prepatory response
- Compensatory response
- Rescorla-Wagner
What does the Stimulus-substitution theory posit?
the CS acts as a substitute for the US.
Food paired with the bell results in the bell being the substitute for food and therefore produces salivation.
What is a problem with the stimulus-subsitution theory?
If the CS is a substitute for the US then the CR would always be the same as the UR
Little Albert freezes instead of cries sometimes, he is still exhibiting fear but it just isnt the same UR.
What does the preparatory response theory posit?
The purpose of the CR is to prepare the organism for
the presentation of the US
What does the compensatory-response model posit?
The conditioned response is compensatory
• Body prepares ahead of time for effect of the drug
For people who do Heroin:
Heroin → decreased blood pressure
• Expect: Heroin-related cues conditioned to decrease blood pressure (BP)
• Reality: Heroin-related cues conditioned to increase BP
What does the Resocorla-Wagner theory posit?
US can only support a certain amount of conditioning
• Stronger stimuli support more conditioning than weaker stimuli
• For example: A highly preferred food produces a stronger salivation response than a less preferred food.
